15 Issues in Curriculum Development AFTER STUDYING THIS ...

15. Issues in Curriculum Development AFTER STUDYING THIS CHAPTER YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO: 1. Identify current and continuing curriculum issues that are brought
about by social and political forces and explain their
significance. CURRENT CURRICULUM ISSUES
Curriculum planners are buffeted by strong educational, social, and
political forces affecting the curriculum decisions they must make.
Movements have emanated from networks of like-minded professional
educators, from the public in general, and from individuals and pressure
groups from outside of the teacher education profession. In this chapter we
explore the effects of some of these pressures in shaping the school
curriculum.
Some of the desires of both pressure groups and the public generally
and, even on occasion, of professional educators have been enacted into
law, for example, the formulation and testing of state standards. No state
or federal law, however, has mandated the strong movement of cooperative
learning and the rise and fall of open-space education. Those nonmandated
movements that have become practices in the schools have done so by
gathering enough voluntary support among the teacher education and public
school professionals to translate them into action. Conversely, when a
nonmandated practice no longer maintains support, like open-space
education, for example, it becomes diminished or disappears.
Borrowing the rubric of Chapter 9 where we examined a number of
curriculum innovations and programs by periods of history, ending with
Curriculum Future, this chapter returns to Curriculum Present. In the
following pages we will explore some of the significant contemporary
curriculum developments set forth as responses to some of the problems
plaguing schools. Some of the issues and their related developments are not
new but remain highly controversial, for example, the place of religion in
public education.
Others are relatively new attempts at solving perennial problems. For purposes of discussion the issues and related developments are
divided into twelve categories, as follows:
1. Academic area initiatives
2. Alternative schooling arrangements
3. Bilingual/bicultural education
4. Censorship
5. Gender
6. Health education
7. Multiculturalism/diversity
8. Privatization
9. Provision for exceptionalities
10. Religion in public education
11. Scheduling arrangements
12. Standards/assessment It can easily be recognized that discrete separation of these twelve
categories, or rubrics, which I'll refer to as issues, cannot be made. In
one sense, they are all interrelated. Some bear close relationship with
each other. For example, you cannot divorce academic initiatives (i.e.,
programs) from standards and testing. You cannot discuss bilingual/
bicultural education without relating to multiculturalism and diversity.
You cannot separate problems of censorship from religion. As curriculum and
instruction cannot be truly separated except for purposes of discussion so
the twelve categories cannot be completely separated except for purposes of
clarification.
In the following pages of this chapter we discuss differences of
opinion, controversies, and developments emanating from these issues.
1. Academic Area Initiatives
By academic area initiatives we mean curriculum developments that have
been undertaken to correct perceived lacks in the schools' course
offerings. Initiatives may apply to changes in programmatic responses to
satisfy current curriculum goals or may be dramatic revisions of those
goals, changing the academic programs radically. In this section we will
look generally at forces effecting academic changes. Many modifications of
traditional school curricula can be readily identified. Throughout the
discussion of the remaining eleven categories we will identify and explore
specific academic areas other than those presented in this first category.
Reform-constant reform-remains a central theme of American education.
All agree that our public schools are not doing as well as we'd like but
all do not agree on what to do about perceived problems. Some, espousing
essentialist thought, recommend focusing narrowly on reading and
mathematics, with perhaps science thrown in, while others, following
progressive doctrine, maintain that attention must be paid to the whole
child, not just the child's intellect. Among the goals of current proposals
for reform are increasing the number of students graduating from high
school with the regular diploma, preparation of students for success in
college and the workforce, and the preservation (some would say
resurrection) of America's standing as an economic power and world leader.
Necessary Skills. Representative of contemporary thinking about the status
of American education and recommendations for correcting its deficiencies
is the 2006 report of the National Center on Education and the Economy's
New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce funded by the Annie
E. Casey Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, and Lumina Foundation for Education.[i] The Commission
in its report, Tough Choices, Tough Times, admitted about America that "we
never dreamed that we would end up competing with countries that could
offer large numbers of highly educated workers willing to work for low
wages,"[ii] namely, China, India, and elsewhere.
Affirming that America can no longer claim to have the best educated
workforce in the world, the Commission called attention to the fact that
the percentage of the world's population of college students has declined
in America from thirty percent to fourteen percent over the past thirty
years.[iii] Like Thomas L. Friedman, who addressed the movements of
globalization and outsourcing,[iv] the Commission noted that the global
economy has gone digital. To cope, America must adapt to the new economic
era restructuring its educational system so its students will graduate with
skills that will permit them to compete in the global marketplace.
Specifically, the Commission report recommended a broad-based education
that goes beyond mastery of the traditional content areas and into the
development of personal traits like creativity, self-discipline,
flexibility, and adaptability.[v]
Strengthening the Academic Programs. In addition to following mandates of
NCLB for specification of state standards and subsequent testing, discussed
later in this chapter, school systems are adding subject requirements and
credits for graduation. Kentucky, for example, will increase the number of
mathematics credits from three to four, effective with the class of
2012.[vi] Within its requirement of twenty-one credits, Maryland will call
for tests in English, algebra/data analysis, biology, and government for
graduation in 2009.[vii] Interestingly, in spite of current movements to
increase offerings in math and science, a recent survey by Public Agenda
found that neither parents nor students were overly concerned about the
amount of math and science in their schools' curricula.[viii]
Core Knowledge. Concentrating on overcoming American students' deficiencies
in cultural literacy (i.e., basic knowledge), the core knowledge schools,
conceptualized in the 1980s by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., professor (now emeritus)
of English, University of Virginia, offer a core of academic subjects in
grades K-8 comprising fifty percent of their school curriculum. The Core
Knowledge Foundation conducts research, publishes materials, conducts
workshops for teachers, and promotes core knowledge schools.[ix]
Hirsch perceived core knowledge (initially called cultural literacy)
as broad general knowledge that ideally should be possessed by all members
of our democratic society. This knowledge, in Hirsch's view, should be the
major goal of schooling in America.1[x]
A core knowledge curriculum starts in the elementary school and
imparts that knowledge deemed by scholars, educators, and laypeople to be
important information about American culture. A culturally literate person
is one who possesses a store of knowledge about the culture-people, places,
facts, vocabulary, and historic and current events. Although elements of
this knowledge may change from time to time, most items remain the same or
change slowly. Advocates of core knowledge see cultural literacy as
enabling citizens of our society to read with understanding, to communicate
thoughts to others within our society, to contribute to the development of
our society, and to open doors that lead to success in our nation. Some
people would view core knowledge as basically traditional education.
Hirsch called for knowledgeable people to join him in developing a
list of cultural items sufficiently important for incorporating in the
curriculum, especially at the elementary school level.[xi] Cultural
literacy would not require in-depth knowledge of all items; in many cases
an imprecise-even superficial knowledge-enough for a reader or listener to
comprehend what a writer or speaker means-would suffice. For example, one
does not need to understand the concepts of Mendel's laws or nuclear
fission to understand references to those terms in a book, magazine,
newspaper article written for the general reader, or, we might add, in a
conversation or speech to a general audience.
Cultural literacy gives precedence to an overriding American culture
and the English language, rejecting the concept of pluralism espoused by
some in which aspects of all subcultures in the nation are studied with
equal concentration. Supporters of cultural literacy view the fragmentation
of the culture and the populace's lack of commonly shared information as
serious problems that schools face in their attempts to develop literate
citizens.
Opponents of cultural literacy view lists of cultural items as
superficial lear